author
Thomas Young
1773–1829
A doctor with the mind of a whole academy, this remarkable British thinker helped change how we understand light, vision, and language. He is best remembered for work on wave interference in light and for early breakthroughs in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.
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About the author
Born in Somerset in 1773, Thomas Young was an English physician and polymath whose curiosity ranged across physics, medicine, physiology, linguistics, and Egyptology. He studied medicine, practiced as a doctor, and became known in learned circles as one of the most wide-ranging intellects of his age.
Young made some of his most lasting marks in science through his work on light and vision. He is closely associated with the interference of light, which helped revive the wave theory, and his name also lives on in Young's modulus, a key concept in the study of elasticity. He also carried out important research on the human eye, including accommodation and astigmatism.
His interests reached far beyond physics. Young contributed to the early study of the Rosetta Stone and made important steps toward deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, showing the same pattern-seeking mind that shaped his scientific work. He died in London in 1829, leaving behind a reputation as one of the great all-round scholars of the early modern scientific world.